Fernando Pessoa Quotes

Man is never always happy, and very often only a brief period of happiness is granted him in this world; so why escape from this dream which cannot last long?

Happiness is fleeting - I think that's the main lesson I have learned.

I knew the facts of death before I knew the facts of life. There never was a time when I didn't see the skull beneath the skin.

As beauteous is the world, and many a joy Floats through its wide dominion. But, alas, When we would seize the winged good, it flies.

Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life. This is what makes us human. But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality. Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die.

Life, the permission to know death.

I've been thinking about happiness-how wrong it is ever to expect it to last or there to be a time of happiness. It's not that, it's a moment of happiness. Almost every day contains at least one moment of happiness.

To really appreciate life you got to know you're going to die.

Feel lucky for what you have when you have it. Isn't that the point? Happily ever after doesn't mean happy forever. The ever after, what precisely was that? Your dreams, your life, your death, your everything. Was it the blank space that went on without us? The forever after we were gone?

Celebrate our brief moment in the sun

Man is the only living being who has a developed self-awareness and death-awareness.

Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you're here and nothing you do will change that. Today you are alive and here and honored and blessed with good fortune. Look at this suset, it's beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose yourself in it, make yourself one with nature and do not worry about karma, yours, mine, or that of the village.

I wish everyone could wake up with a birdie on your shoulder, reminding them that this could be your last day.

Knowing reality is knowing that you can't lose it.

In youth alone, unhappy mortals live; But, ah! the mighty bliss is fugitive: Discolour'd sickness, anxious labour, come, And age, and death's inexorable doom.

All things that pass Are wisdom's looking-glass.

We live but a fraction of our lives.

In music I feel most deeply the passing of things.

They like life alright, but that they would like it even better if they could know that it was going to end sometime.

You too shall pass away. Knowing this, how can you quarrel?

Whatever bliss we think we're going to find, we may find it in brief flashes, fleeting moments that come and go. There's an impossibility to nailing down any good feeling.

How fragile we are, between the few good moments.

Alas, poor men, their destiny. When all goes well a shadow will overthrow it. If it be unkind one stroke of a wet sponge wipes all the picture out.

You can lead a happy life if you recognize that it's limited and completely unpredictable from one moment to the next.